Don’t Come Knocking
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 22nd, 2006
Burned out actor Howard Spense (Sam Shepard) has a mid-life crisis, rides off the set of his latest western, and visits his mother (Eva Marie Saint), whom he has not seen in over 30 years. Mother Spense informs Howard that he has a son named Earl, (Gabriel Mann) living in Butte, Montana from a fling he had with Doreen (Jessica Lange), while he was there shooting on location 20 years ago. Upon arriving in Butte (he gravitates there more than actually arriving), Howard also meets Sky (Sarah Polley), a mysterious woman …
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L.A. Story
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 22nd, 2006
Steve Martin plays a wacky TV weatherman, who develops a close friendship with an electronic freeway sign in the sleeper hit comedy L.A. Story. I found the critically acclaimed film to lack hilarity, but it does get marks for inventiveness. Martin is enjoyable in most anything he’s in, even if the material is not-so-great. L.A. Story is one such example of an actor rising above said material. Most of the over-the-top silliness misses the mark, and Marilu Henner has little more to do than play the cliche…
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New Release Tuesday
Posted in New Release Tuesday, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on August 22nd, 2006
Hello, I’m your fill-in host for the week, mister Kedrix (your game columnist). Yes I’m back again, after I swore I wouldn’t be. Call it an obligaton, call it a true pain in the… Anyhow, in this edition of the New Release Tuesday blog, we get a good look into this weeks top releases. Some good Criterion choices and some good HD/Blu-Ray for a change. Well,on to the lists…
Top Film Releases
Kicking and Screaming and Seduced and Abandoned,…
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Highly Defined – The World of High Definition
Posted in Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 21st, 2006
Highly Defined
How long until Madden comes out?
Just the usual news and notes from me, but in mildly disappointing news, RoboCop, and Black Hawk Down, 2 Blu-Ray titles that would have made the race a little more interesting, were pulled or bumped from the released calendar until who knows when (presumably until the whole MGM/Sony distribution issue can be hashed out).
Meanwhile in terms of other release news, while Blu-Ray owners can’t wait for the previously released Warne…
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Avdeco – the exploding component / TV shelf
Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 21st, 2006
Watch your back if you own an “Avdeco” branded component and TV shelf with glass shelves:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=713200
The Death of Plasma
Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 21st, 2006
Ars Technica asks today “Is Plasma Doomed?” Citing the fact that LCD’s now overlap with plasma in terms of size and (arguably) picture quality, along with the fact that certain manufacturers are stopping plasma development and production to shift to LCD’s, the author suggests that “Plasma vs. LCD” is comparable to the apocryphal “Beta vs. VHS” battle.
Anyway, interesting observation that plasma is getting clobbered, but personally, I can’t see i…
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Arrested Development – Season Two
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 20th, 2006
Synopsis
So when you’re the head of Fox prime time programming, and you’ve got a television staple like The Simpsons on your Sunday night lineup, and Arrested Development wins the Best Comedy Series Emmy in its first season, what do you do? Well you callously trim the order of episodes from 22 to 18, put The Simpsons as its lead-in without a lot of fanfare, and almost even more egregiously barely hype guest appearances by well-established comic performers like Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Se…
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My Summer Story
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 20th, 2006
Synopsis
A Christmas Story featured a charming, old-fashioned story about Ralphie (Peter Billingsley, Elf), who wanted nothing more in life than to get a Red Ryder BB Gun. His parents (played by Darren McGavin (Raw Deal) and Melinda Dillon (Magnolia)) in the depression era-Midwest kept him in check as he pleaded with them to get it for Xmas.
Now in cinema life, the next summer gave Ralphie the chance to spin tops (and look for the best one possible), while his mother an…
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MLB Slugfest 2006 (Playstation 2)
Posted in Game Reviews by Michael Durr on August 20th, 2006
Opening
Baseball, a sport that is near and dear to my heart. I played it from age 7 to age 16. I never was quite that good; I had a lot of natural talent and I did hustle; however I never worked at the gifts I was given enough to take myself to the next level. So, me like many have resorted to the crass style of playing games that emulate something we wish we were. To be honest, I sat on this review a long time, not the game itself; I’ve been playing it quite frequently. But the review, …
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Duck Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 19th, 2006
Written By Jeff Mardo
This disc certainly had me fooled. I though I was in for another one of those lame teenage “comedies” where the emphasis is on lame and cliché jokes and the occasional glimpse of gratuitous nudity. What I wound, however, was a wonderful movie that is the very definition of an indie film. If you liked Kevin Smith’s first foray into filmmaking, then you will probably like this piece as well. I would contend that Clerks was a better film, but this Mexican film certainly has it’s on charm as well. While Smith’s fi…
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Veronica Mars – The Complete Second Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 19th, 2006
Clearly, I am in the minority when it comes to Veronica Mars. Reviewers go on and on about the sharp writing on this show, but I just don’t see it. With character names like “Beaver”, “Butters”, “Weevil” and my favorite, “Dick Casablancas”, this is a show where the writing is actually one of the things that is wrong with this show. (And yes, Beaver and Dick are friends. How’s that for creativity?) The character of Wallace is an African American stereotype that is embarrassing, and stinks of what old while people think young black men are like.
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Brain Blasters
Posted in Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 18th, 2006
And so, after a long summer, it has finally come to this: Snakes on a Plane ceases to be a hot-weather fantasy and becomes a reality. Now we can all see whether this creature that became a cult before it was even finished can in any way live up (or down) to our expectations, hopes, and fears. Let us pause, then, and reflect on killer snake movies from the past.
The question as to whether Snakes on a Plane will be any good is completely irrelevant. A look back demonstrates that there has never …
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Manderlay
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 17th, 2006
Synopsis
Marnderlay is part two of the trilogy that began with Dogville. Picking up where that film left off, we see Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard replacing Nicole Kidman) and her gangster father (Willem Dafoe taking over from James Caan) arriving at Manderlay, a plantation where slavery never ended. Grace, horrified by this state of affairs, orders slavery abolished, but her attempts to bring freedom to the slaves lead inexorably to disaster.
While one does, at first, miss the l…
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Road House
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 17th, 2006
Road House is macaroni and cheese for a lot of movie goers that are over 27 years of age. Released in 1989, the movie chronicles the life of James Dalton (Patrick Swayze, Ghost), a “cooler” at a local bar, who is offered a huge sum of money to help a bar owner named Frank Tilghman (Kevin Tighe, Mumford) get his place called the “Double Deuce” back on its feet. A cooler for lack of a better explanation is a bouncer who helps diffuse situations before they blow up into brawls.
Old School Demo
Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 17th, 2006
Discussing the old school DVD’s that still sound and look great in the era of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technology.
No matter what happens to Mel Gibson after his infamous arrest and anti-Semitic tirade, one can’t deny that he’s made and starred in some powerful films throughout his career. Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, Signs, Passion of the Christ… the list goes on. However, one of my favorite Gibson movies has always been The Patriot.
Basically an update of Braveheart< ...
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Cello
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 16th, 2006
Synopsis
Mu-ju is trying to adjust to life again after surviving a terrible accident. Life is still hard, as her eldest daughter suffers from something like autism, and she is having trouble landing a permanent position as a teacher at a music school (plus, a former student has it in for her). The aforementioned eldest daughter becomes obsessed with a cello, and a mute housekeeper moves in, and terrible things begin to happen.
But those terrible things wait far too long to happen. A third o…
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Worst Week of My Life – The Complete First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 16th, 2006
If you ask me, what sitcoms need are fewer contrivances and more realistic humor. That’s what made Seinfeld so brilliant. As horrible as those people were, the sad truth is that all of us have a little bit of that twisted humor lurking within us. That’s just the kind of thing that happens with The Worst Week of My Life. This amazingly funny BBC series lasts just seven episodes, but I guess that should be expected judging from the show’s title. The names of the episodes themselves are “Sunday”, “Monday”, “Tuesday” and so on. By the end of the season, viewers have been treated to what is often-times the worst week of many people’s lives.
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Dare to Play the Game
Posted in Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on August 16th, 2006
Condom Jokes, Gaining that Ground, and Spewing forth a collection for the masses – Welcome to the gym sock that you used to catch your deposits known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I’m your host that is kinda down this week. Yes, you read that right, mister game columnist has a a couple of depression issues. Well I turn 31 on the 19th, and to be perfectly honest it kinda sucks. Traditionally my birthdays have not beenvery …
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Film Noir Classic Collection Vol. 3
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 15th, 2006
Synopsis
Robert Mitchum shows up twice here, as does Robert Ryan. The two clash in The Racket (1951), where Mitchum is the incorruptible cop, and Ryan is the old-school gangster whose brutally direct methods put him in conflict not only with Mitchum, but with the more sophisticated crime syndicate spreading over the land. The focus of the film is rather split between the two, but is pretty tense, and is further enlivened by a memorably sleazy turn by William Conrad as a VERY corrupt cop.
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Tristram Shandy – A Cock and Bull Story
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 15th, 2006
Tristram Shandy is the oddest and most entertaining sort of film. It is a film about the making of the film that you are watching, hosted by the fictional main character. It is sort-of like American Splendor, and sort-of like Spinal Tap. The film is the story of the life of Tristram Shandy, an 18th century Englishman of particularly stately means. The man’s life is of note and worthy of such a film because… well, now that I think of it… I don’t really know. You see, there are so many interruptions and different takes during the film that the actors are trying to make, that the viewer never really learns anything.
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Tracey Takes On: The Complete Second Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 15th, 2006
There is a little more Tracey to go around with Tracey Takes On: The Complete Second Season, so fans of the show shouldn’t be disappointed. However, I find her humor quaint and dry in an inescapably British way. No one can deny her talent. But it’s hard to like a show when none of the laughs are connecting. Of course, humor – like beauty – is certainly in the eye of the beholder. With that said, I am not one of the lucky ones that can look at this raw oyster of a show and see the pearl. This season, Ullman inc…
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New Release Tuesday
Posted in New Release Tuesday, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on August 15th, 2006
Hi, I’m your fill-in host for the week, mister Kedrix (your game columnist). You know, one would think I know nothing about dvds, except the fact I’m looking at 400 of them in my new revolvey case thing. Anyhow, in this edition of the New Release Tuesday blog, we get a good look into this weeks top releases. A good smattering of releases this week, particually in the TV department. Well,on to the lists…
Top Film Releases
Some good schlock this week to get…
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I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2006
Horror films have transformed over the years. We’ve essentially gone from horror films using religion to frighten (The Exorcist, The Omen) to slashers (just about everything in the 80’s), to nothing (the early 90’s void), to post-modern slashers, (Scream, Urban Legends, I Know What You Did Last Summer) to torture (Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes).
With I”ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, we take a short trip back into the slasher genre. And surprisingly, it still looks and fe…
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Kisses and Caroms
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2006
Today, anyone with a credit card and some free time can make a movie. But that doesn’t mean it’s always a good thing. Case in point is Kisses and Caroms, which sports a massive hard-on for Kevin Smith’s Clerks (it’s Clerks in a billiards store. Brilliant!), but its characters, dialogue and location fail to be funny or engaging. For one, how many oddball customers can a billiards store receive in one day? In Clerks, it was believable, since people from all walks of life need what is readily…
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Highly Defined – The World of High Definition
Posted in Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2006
Where your trusty columnist has joined the ranks of the Xbox owners…
Things have moved along like people have figured in the next-gen DVD wars, which is to say, there isn’t a clear winner since the last time we talked. There is some news from Paramount, being that Mission: Impossible III will release SD, Blu and HD DVDs all on the day and date (10/30 for those who are curious). The HD release and extras will be duplicated from the Blu-Ray extras, with the exception of a picture-in-picture commentary …
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